Nicholas Goldberg: Who are you calling a 'fascist' — and do you even know what it means?

Americans know little history and what little they know they forget. Ask college students who won the Civil War or ask adults when the U.S. Constitution was ratified or whom the U.S. fought in World War II and shocking numbers will have no idea.

That's one reason we should be careful about throwing around historical allusions and parallels.

Here are two cases in point: the words "fascist" and "un-American." Both are bandied about with easy promiscuity, but both date back to particular moments in history and carry very specific meanings and connotations.

The many uses to which